For a year and a half following the murder of Matthew Shepard, Moisés Kaufman and his Tectonic Theater Project–whose previous play, Gross Indecency, was hailed as a work of unsurpassed originality–conducted hundreds of interviews with the citizens of Laramie, Wyoming, to create this portrait of a town struggling with a horrific event.

The savage killing of Shepard, a young gay man, has become a national symbol of the struggle against intolerance. But for the people of Laramie–both the friends of Matthew and those who hated him without knowing him–the tragedy was personal. In a chorus of voices that brings to mind Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, The Laramie Project allows those most deeply affected to speak, and the result is a brilliantly moving theatrical creation.